The radical challenge of Mary Shelley’s The Last Man

Abstract

This article explores how social, political and ecological issues precipitated by a cholera pandemic are not only dramatized in Mary Shelley’s novel, The Last Man (1826), but also how these reflect the continued radicalization of her own life and ideas. I want therefore to argue for a reading of the novel that goes beyond its obvious dystopian dimensions. In particular, in a striking reversal, how the plague triggers not chaos, confusion and conflict, but opens up utopian spaces for active cooperation and political engagement. Instead of merely being a story of ineluctable human extinction, Mary Shelley offers a more challenging diagnosis of worldwide contagion and its historical implications.